The Wounded Healer – Bringing the World Back to Life

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With Lyla June Johnston and Selkie Shell and a Fireside Chat with Satish Kumar

Prophecy counselled that one day the world would get lost. And then one day the world would become hungry for Life again. When this happened the world would come looking for the wisdom of Indigenous people.

It was said therefore, that the role of Indigenous peoples was to care-take the knowledge of how to be here, on this Earth, to safeguard it, and to remember its practices. When the world was humbled and ready, when it came back to look, this knowledge could be brought out once again, and in remembering the truth, thriving life could return.

Many elders across the world say that that time has come. Some think it is still on its way, but most all agree it is soon. This is no small task. To care-take, and safeguard this knowledge under threat of genocide and the pressure of assimilation has been difficult. To find the willingness to open up the vaults and give out the knowledge that was to be protected is not without its controversies. This is true especially as it requires an internal healing of deep atrocity and deep forgiveness.

The only way this could be possible is through the spiritual health practices that Indigenous cultures hold. As Indigenous communities come back together and gather what was saved in times of profound destruction, as they find the spirit of the old ways of right relations with all Life, it seems they are contributing to a map of restoration that the whole world is seeking.

The "how" of this regrouping gives insight into how the world as global community can also look to bring itself into ways of true sustainability. In this week we will look at the microcosm of the Wounded Healer becoming Healer, and also how this might play out in the larger community of humanity.

Contributor

Lyla June Johnston

Lyla June Johnston was raised in Taos, New Mexico and is a descendent of Diné (Navajo) and Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) lineages. Her personal mission in life is to grow closer to Creator by learning how to love deeper. This prayer has taken her on many journeys and materializes in diverse ways.

She is a student of global cycles of violence that eventually gave rise to The Native American Holocaust and the destruction of many cyclic relationships between human beings and nature. This exploration birthed her passion for revitalizing spiritual relationships with Mother Earth and cultivating spaces for forgiveness and reconciliation to occur between cultural groups. She is a co-founder of The Taos Peace and Reconciliation Council, which works to heal intergenerational trauma and ethnic division in the northern New Mexico. She is a walker within the Nihigaal Bee Iiná Movement, a 1,000-mile prayer walk through Diné Tah (the Navajo homeland) that is exposing the exploitation of Diné land and people by uranium, coal, oil and gas industries. She is the lead organizer of the Black Hill Unity Concert which gathers native and nonnative musicians to pray for the return of guardianship of the Black Hills to the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota nations. She is the also the founder of Regeneration Festival, an annual celebration of children that occurs in 13 countries around the world every September.

In 2012, she graduated with honors from Stanford University with a degree in Environmental Anthropology. During her time there she wrote the award winning papers: Nature and the Supernatural: The Role of Culture and Spirituality in Sustaining Primate Populations in Manu National Park, Peru and Chonos Pom: Ethnic Endemism Among the Winnemem Wintu and the Cultural Impacts of Enlarging Shasta Reservoir. She is a musician, public speaker and internationally recognized performance poet. Lyla June ultimately attributes any achievements to Creator who gave her the tools and resources she uses to serve humanity.

She currently lives in Diné Tah, the Navajo ancestral homeland which spans what is now called New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona. She spends her free time learning her engendered mother tongue, planting corn, beans and squash and spending time with elders who retain traditional spiritual and ecological knowledge.

Selkie Shell

Selkie Shell is a practicing wise woman and poet who lives in the heart of the West Country. She is also the founder of wytchwyse.com and provides workshops, events and retreats in Old Ways magic. She is a highly experienced celebrant, forest school teacher and oracle reader who specialises in rune lore, and she is presently working on her first book of natural magic and tree oracle cards. She was featured in Devon Life, Oct 2016, The Fae magazine July 2017 and She Who Knows magazine Sept 2017.

Fee:

£ 795.00

Course fees include basic accommodation, all meals, field trips, materials, Earth Talk ticket and all teaching sessions. The programme will run from Monday to Friday afternoon, and includes four nights private accommodation and all vegetarian meals from the first lunchtime you arrive through until the lunchtime before your departure. We ask you to arrive between 11:30 - 1 on the first day of your course so that the group can begin the experience by dining together. We recommend attending this course as a fully residential participant however for you may choose to book as a non-residential participant. Please call 01803 847237 for more details. This short course is part of Schumacher College's Becoming Indigenous Programme.

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Schumacher College is part of the Dartington Hall Trust, a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and as a charity(company no. 1485560, charity no. 279756). Registered office: The Elmhirst Centre, Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EL, United Kingdom